Furman’s great high school career led to playing at Pitt
Marcus Furman is one of the most celebrated running backs to come out of Fayette County. He posted some terrific numbers at Connellsville High School in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He earned four letters in football, and also lettered three times in basketball and three times in track.
“It was fun,” Furman said. “I think about those years often as I get older and my body becomes more creaky, I’ve got bad hips and all that stuff. My mom keeps me updated on Connellsville football and things haven’t been going that great lately. But we had some competitive teams when I played.”
Furman was on Falcon squads that went 9-1 in 1997, losing to Penn-Trafford in the WPIAL playoffs, 17-0. In 1998, the Falcons posted a record of 6-4 and lost to Penn Hills in the WPIAL playoffs, 53-14. The 1999 team was 5-5 with a 47-13 loss to Woodland Hills in the WPIAL playoffs. During Furman’s senior season in 2000, the Falcons went 3-7.
In his freshman season, Furman primarily played defensive back. He played defensive back and running back until his senior season, when he was used primarily at running back.
Furman was listed as 5-8, 175 pounds in high school, which may have been a little generous size wise.
“When I got to Pitt I was 170 pounds,” Furman said. “So 175 was a little bit of a stretch. I carried the ball a lot, It was a lot of fun, my mom still had a lot of the tapes of those games. It was a good time that I’ll never forget a lot of the stuff that I got the opportunity to do because of football.”
Dan Spanish was the head coach at Connellsville when Furman played.
“Most of the time I had a good relationship with coach Spanish,” Furman stated. “Summers were a problem, at the time I wasn’t a fan of summer workouts. I got a job in the summer working with my mom, she worked at a nursing home. I had a long conversation with coach about my habits and my future and what it took to get where I wanted to go. I loved playing for coach Spanish.”
Furman finished at the time as the ninth-leading rusher in WPIAL history with 5,041 career yards. He rushed for 1,787 yards with 21 touchdowns in 10 games his senior season, and set the state single-game rushing record with 455 yards on 28 carries (16.3 average), while scoring five touchdowns versus Hempfield. The record has since been broken.
“Two runs were called back that were both about 50 yards,” Furman recalled. “It was a thrill to set the record and I remember the Hempfield running back, Matt Steve, set the record against us the previous season. I remember that day in school we joked about setting the record since they did it to us. At halftime I had about 250 yards, and we kind of made it a goal to get the record.”
Furman led the WPIAL in rushing as a junior with 2,037 yards on 196 carries (10.4 average) and scored 30 touchdowns. A four-year starter, he set school records for rushing yards in a career (5,041), season (2,037) and game (455). Furman also set Connellsville marks for touchdowns in a career (74), season (30) and game (six). He had nine 200-yard single-game rushing performances during his career.
He was a two-time member of The Associated Press Big School All-State Team and also garnered Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Fabulous 22,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Terrific 25,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette All-WPIAL Quad East and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review All-Class AAAA honors.
Furman was on Connellsville basketball teams that went 17-10 under coach Bill Swan in 1998-99, upsetting Woodland Hills, 54-51, and then falling to North Allegheny, 58-36. They lost to Peabody in the PIAA playoffs, 65-45.
In 1999-2000, the Falcons finished, 11-13, and in 2000-2001 they went 18-8, beating Kiski Area, 56-55, in the WPIAL playoffs, and then losing to Central Catholic, 90-70. Furman tallied a career total of 286 points for the Falcons.
Furman also excelled in track for the Falcons and posting some outstanding times in the 100-meter dash.
“I enjoyed track,” Furman said. “It was probably the most fun of the sports I played because you would show up and hang out at the track for a little bit and talk to some people. I liked getting to talk to kids from other schools, and my senior year I collected T-shirts from all the schools that we ran against.
“Basketball was actually my favorite sport to play, I started playing basketball first. My dad got me into it when I was about four-years old. I always enjoyed playing basketball, it was the most fun I had during games.”
When Furman graduated in 2001 from Connellsville he was the nation’s 24th-ranked wide receiver prospect by Tom Lemming, 18th-ranked prospect in Pennsylvania by SuperPrep, PrepStar All-Eastern Region and selected to play in the prestigious Big 33 Football Classic. Schools were knocking on his door with football offers.
“The recruiting process was so much fun,” Furman explained. “A lot of my decision came down to the visits I took. I took a visit to Kentucky, I went down to Tulane, I visited Notre Dame, the atmosphere there wasn’t for me. I’m kind of a city person and South Bend is a small town. I went to Pitt and I met the team and I connected with the guys. Antonio Bryant was my host and he took the time to talk to me, but he cared about who I was as a person and I decided on Pitt.”
Furman played for coach Walt Harris at Pitt on teams that were 7-5 in 2001, beating North Carolina State in the Tangerine Bowl, 34-19. In 2002, the Panthers were 9-4 and downed Oregon State in the Insight Bowl, 38-13. In 2003, Pitt was 8-5 and lost to Virginia, 23-16, in the Continental Tire Bowl, and in Furman’s senior campaign in 2004, the Panthers posted a record of 8-4 and were defeated by Utah, 35-7, in the Fiesta Bowl.
Splitting time at running back and wide receiver and also returning kicks, Furman played in 37 games at Pitt and had 114 rushing attempts for 444 yards and one touchdown. He caught 44 passes for 369 yards and one touchdown. He was 2-for-2 passing for 56 yards and one touchdown and returned 33 kicks for 719 yards and one touchdown.
“I don’t regret the choice to go to Pitt,” Furman stated. “Sometimes I do wonder, it would have been either Pitt or Notre Dame and I sometimes wonder how things would have been different, but I don’t wish that I had gone to Notre Dame. I had fun at Pitt.”
After Furman graduated from Pitt, he played one year for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers of the AF2, a minor division of the Arena Football League.
Furman was a retail manager for American Eagle and worked for several retail outlets. He is currently General Manager at Gap Inc. Furman, 33, resides in Hardeeville, South Carolina, with his wife of five and a half years, Leslie, and they have a 4-year old daughter, Kaiya.
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.